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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Renfrewshire => Topic started by: hannahjgervaise on Saturday 22 February 25 00:06 GMT (UK)
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Hi,
Some of my Erskine related family have had a dna match with someone who has a Mary Erskine b. 1821 in Port Glasgow who married a John Lauder at Port Glasgow in 1841 then Alexander Baillie at Greenock in 1855 in their tree. I believe Mary may be the sister or niece of my Jane Erskine b.c 1801 in Renfrewshire.
Is anyone able to search for these marriages while doing their own research at the National Archives or other places?. I don't know which Church Mary married in at Port Glasgow. It could have been the UP Church. I live in Australia and can't look myself except through Scotland's People which is expensive.
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6 credits cost £1.50 which will buy you a marriage cert so if you wanted both it is only £3 GB A marriage cert in England or Wales is considerably more expensive.
The 1855 cert will give you Mary's parents names & her mothers maiden name but the 1841 marriage will only give basic info as it was before Statutory Registration. You would be better going for the 1855 cert
I can't see any Lauder births from 1841 - 1854 with mmn Erskine on SP
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For this period in North Cornwall, England the witnesses were named in Church weddings pre registration so I was hoping that some areas in Scotland would do this. The dna match thinks that Mary's parents were Robert Erskine and Mary Leckie who married at Paisley high Church. The Banns for the Baillie marriage were in December 1854 so I wonder if they got married in the Church soon after and it was only registered on July 5 1855. If both of Mary's parents had died by then it may not give much detail. My Jane Irwin nee Erskine had died by 1855 so would not be a witness so that is why I am interested in the earlier Lauder marriage. I would have to pay conversion money to pay at Scotland's people. The relative who lives in England is pretty sure Robert is the right ancestor judging by dna matches and record searches so she is going back from there and does not seem interested in buying the Baillie Marriage Certificate.
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My dna match found the following Lauder births/Baptisms:
Jane/Jean Lauder 1842
Olivia Lauder 1850
John Erskine Lauder 1852 at Greenock East, Renfrewshire
Olivia appears often in my branch of Erskine descendants and it does not appear to be a common first name is Scotland at the time.
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It doesn't matter whether her parents were alive or dead in 1855 - their names would still go on her marriage cert with (dec'd) after the name
In England - Civil Registration was introduced on 1.7.1837 - in Scotland it was 1855. Witnesses names were shown both pre & post those dates. Witnesses were often not family members
In England - only the fathers name is ever shown on a marriage cert - never the mothers name
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The family is indexed as Lander on the 1851 census
John 35 b Perth
Mary 33 b Port Glasgow
Jean 9 b Port Glasgow
Olivia 1 b Greenock
In 1861 they are in Durham as Baillie but no Olivia
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I live in Australia and can't look myself except through Scotland's People which is expensive.
You can access historical Scottish certificates far less expensively than Australian ones.
It costs £1.50 to view a digital image of a historical certificate on Scotland's People. That, at today's exchange rate, is AUD$2.78.
A New South Wales certificate costs AUD$39 - 13 times the cost of a Scottish one
A Victoria certificate costs AUD$22.50 - just under 7 times the cost of a Scottish one
A Queensland certificate costs AUD$24.70 - over 7 times the cost of a Scottish one
A Western Australia certificate costs AUD$20 - less than 6 times the cost of a Scottish one
A South Australia certificate costs AUD$36.25 - 12 times the cost of a Scottish one
And you get your Scottish image instantly - you don't have to wait for it to come by post.
If you need a formal certificate to prove a relationship, or if you want a recent*, non-historical certificate, a Scottish one does cost £12 and you do have to wait for it to come by post. £12 is AUD$23.85 so it is still cheaper than a certificate from NSW, QLD or SA and similar to the cost of a VIC or WA one.
*Less than 100 years for births, 75 years for marriages and 50 years for deaths.
I don't know which Church Mary married in
She almost certainly didn't get married in a church building at all. Weddings were mostly held in the bride's home or, if she had no parents' home or she married a long way from home, in her employer's house or in the parish manse.
It could have been the UP Church
Her first marriage could not have been celebrated by a UP minister as the UP Church did not exist in 1844. The United Presbyterian Church was formed in 1847 by the union of the United Secession Church and the Relief Church.
Her 1855 marriage certificate should tell you exactly where she was married and by what religious denomination.
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Forfarian you bring up some good points. The Certificates are a lot cheaper than Australian ones even taking into a/c. conversion rates. I think that they are all sent electronically except Tasmania here.
That is interesting that Marriages tended to be performed in a home. That happened to family in Australia but is was more because some looked Aboriginal and the Priest/Minister would not marry them in the Church but would for the ones they knew were Aboriginal(they lived in a country town) but did not look like it.
I cannot find a marriage for my Jane Erskine but her husband was Irish and Episcopal with the Church not long being reestablished in Scotland where they were living in the 1820s.Also the Church records are mostly in private hands. They both died before the 1851 Census which would have given exact birth places.
The most likely parents of the Mary Erskine mentioned, Robert Erskine and Mary Leckie were married at Paisley High Church in 1820 so it may be worth buying as well. I don't know for sure that Mary and Jane are related but Jane was born in Renfrewshire and had her first known child at Port Glasgow in 1826. My Mum only has one known Scottish line and Ancestry shows that the match to Mary's descendant is on her side as do the other two relatives who match the same person.
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I cannot find a marriage for my Jane Erskine but her husband was Irish and Episcopal with the Church not long being reestablished in Scotland where they were living in the 1820s.Also the Church records are mostly in private hands.
The baptisms of three children of William Irvine and Jean Erskine are in the Church of Scotland parish registers
Ann, baptised 27 August 1820
Robert Henry H, baptised 7 March 1824
Margaret Anne, baptised 10 January 1827
See screenshot.
It is true that the surviving registers of the Episcopal Church in Scotland are not in the hands of Scotland's People, but I am not sure that there ever were many in Port Glasgow. Neither the Statistical Account of Scotland (1793) nor the New Statistical Account (1845) of Port Glasgow makes any reference to there being any Episcopalians in that parish. Have a look for yourself at https://stataccscot.ed.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/home
The most likely parents of the Mary Erskine mentioned, Robert Erskine and Mary Leckie were married at Paisley High Church in 1820 so it may be worth buying as well.
They were married in the parish of Paisley High Church. This does not mean that they were married in the actual church building.
However as this is before the start of civil registration (1 January 1855) it is a church record and may not contain any useful additional information.
The first thing you need to do is view that 1855 marriage certificate. It will tell you the names of Mary Erskine's parents, including her mother's maiden surname, and remove any doubt about that. It will also tell you whether or not they were dead by the time of her marriage.
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Thanks Forfarian The couple you mention (William and Jean Irvine) are not my ancestors because that William was a labourer and mine was a schoolmaster (there were not many labourers emigrating from Ireland until they were needed for the iron works and coal mines later in the century).
Also the children's names don't match up I have:
Jane Irwin b 1826
Olivia Mary Smith Irwin b.1833
Sussannah b. 1836
William Erskine Irwin b. 1839 (We don't know what happened to him as he was not in the 1841 Census)
Cecilia Irvine b. 1841 (It says in the Church Register her parents were George Irvine and Jane Erskine but they were living at the same address as in the 1841 Census -Quay Lane No. 7 Paisley
Cecilia was my g.g.grandmother and she is definately a sister to the others as I dna match with descendants of Jane Irwin and Olivia Irwin .
Olivia,Sussannah and William were baptised by the Episcopal Church in Greenock and Cecilia by the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church Paisley.
The original Registers are still at these Churches.
It is possible that William was sent back to Ireland as a relative descended from Jane whose branch moved back from Australia and stayed there went to a family event there as a child in the 1940s but could not remember details.
Jane,Sussannah and Cecilia all emigrated to Australia in the 1850s and Olivia married a Thomas Bald and moved around Scotland and England. Jane's husband William Leonard was an Iron Works manager and they went back with their two youngest children so he could work in Coatbridge. Only their son Henry stayed and had a family there. In the 1851 Census Jane was living at Dundyvan near Coatbridge supporting her two younger siblings as a teacher and dressmaker. Her father had died at Coatbridge but we don't know what year b/w. 1841 and 1851.
Yes I should order the 1855 certificate for Mary Erskine b. 1821 even though her descendant is convinced by dna matches and records that he has the right parents. If Mary's father is dead though it might not mention his profession.
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Yes I should order the 1855 certificate for Mary Erskine b. 1821 even though her descendant is convinced by dna matches and records that he has the right parents. If Mary's father is dead though it might not mention his profession.
A Scottish death certificate gives the same information about deceased parents as it does of living ones, so it normally gives the deceased's father's occupation.
See https://www.scotlandsgenealogy.com/blog/scottish-death-certificate-information (which is not 100% correct but close enough)
Cecilia Irvine b. 1841 (It says in the Church Register her parents were George Irvine and Jane Erskine but they were living at the same address as in the 1841 Census -Quay Lane No. 7 Paisley
If you are reading something significant into the surname being recorded as Irvine instead of Irwin, don't. Spelling was a very variable concept, and spelling it Irvine instead of Irwin just means that one clerk had a different notion of how to write it down.
The only sure way to pick up all the variant spellings is to use wildcards in the search - ir*n* will pick up Irwin, Irvine, Irving and their variants. It will also pick up some obviously unrelated names, for example Ireland and Irfan, but it's easy enough to discount them. (I see that one enterprising couple spells it Irbhinn, using the Gaelic spelling convention that 'bh' is pronounced as English 'v' or German 'w'.)
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Forfarian, Yes sometimes the surname is recorded as Irvine but what I wonder about is why was the father of Cecilia called George when everywhere else he was recorded as William. Maybe the minister used his real first name but William preferred his second Christian name. I believe he came from a middle class family to become a school master at that time and they were more likely to have two first names. Two of the girls came to Australia under the surname Irwing so that was another variation.
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Forfarian, Yes sometimes the surname is recorded as Irvine but what I wonder about is why was the father of Cecilia called George when everywhere else he was recorded as William. Maybe the minister used his real first name but William preferred his second Christian name. I believe he came from a middle class family to become a school master at that time and they were more likely to have two first names. Two of the girls came to Australia under the surname Irwing so that was another variation.
Middle names are pretty rare that far back, and when bestowed they are usually the surname of an older generation - more likely the clerk made a mistake.
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Forfarian, I have just found out that a relative got a transcript for the Baillie marriage that occured in 1854 but was registered on July 5 1855. It does not mention parents so maybe I have to get a full Certificate if available.
The middle class in the early 1800s did tend to have middle names as the working class were not permitted until around 1850. William's daughter b 1833 had three first names Olivia Mary Smith Bald (Irwin) and her brother b. 1839 William Erskine Irwin but unfortunately the others probably had them but they did not use them on documents. I only found Olivia's on her English death certificate which are normally useless for information but in the index it said Olivia Mary S. Bald. Imagine my disappointment when I found the name Smith. Even in Scotland and Ireland there are many Smiths.
I did find a Register that included Port Glasgow Episcopalians at the Mitchell Library from a list an Archivist gave me at The National Archives that was not listed online. William and Jane were not in it but I found out that there were records held at the Greenock Church and Paisley.
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Forfarian, I have just found out that a relative got a transcript for the Baillie marriage that occured in 1854 but was registered on July 5 1855. It does not mention parents so maybe I have to get a full Certificate if available.
Yes, you do.
The middle class in the early 1800s did tend to have middle names as the working class were not permitted until around 1850.
News to me. Where did you find that?
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I read it in a history book.
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Ah.
I have also read that there was an ancient law reserving middle names for the nobility, but this was in England and would therefore not have applied in Scotland.
Also, while there are many web sites that state this as a fact, I have yet to find any credible source at all that quotes chapter and verse of when this law was passed and when it was repealed.
So I'd be very pleased to hear from anyone who can tell me more about this topic.
I have also read that, in Scotland, the churches recognised only the first given name as valid, and therefore middle names often tended not be recorded, if indeed they were bestowed at all, until the start of civil registration in 1855. Even after that, it is surprising how often people acquire in later life a middle name that is not on their birth certificate.
Again, I'd be very interesting in some more solid evidence to support or refute this assertion.
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Yes I would have read middle names were reserved for the middle classes in an English history book. I don't have any primary evidence that it was law.
I believe my Irwin/Erskine family all had second names even though only two of the five children's were officially recorded. It is possible they descended from minor gentry and my two aunts dna match descendants of someone who married into the French royal family who was either Scottish or French.
I don't know if Episcopal Ministers typically only recorded one first name just that they did for this family except for the son.
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I don't know if Episcopal Ministers typically only recorded one first name just that they did for this family except for the son.
As I said, I have read somewhere that in the eyes of the church, only the first given name counted as the child's name in religion, and that therefore middle names were often omitted from the baptism record.
However I can't remember where I read it, or, more to the point, what the source for this bit of information was, so I don't know how trustworthy it is.